T he new Hattie’s Food Hub in Akron, a first of its kind for the area, is nearly ripe for the picking.
Organizers say the small fresh produce market and commercial food processing kitchen will open early next month.
The hub — in a new building off Cedar Street west of downtown — has generated a buzz.
“People have been skirting into the parking lot, saying ‘what’s happening here?’ ” said Tania Santos, a spokeswoman for Hattie Larlham, the nonprofit that serves people with disabilities.
It created Hattie’s Food Hub — with a distinctive-winged roof — as an offshoot of its Hattie’s Gardens program.
“When I tell people it’s going to be a new twist on a corner store, they get excited,” Santos said.
Like the three Hattie’s Gardens sites, the Food Hub will serve as a work training program for adults with developmental disabilities.
In time for the opening, the hub will be stocked with produce from local farms, as well as the gardens, which include hoop houses and green houses that allow crops to be grown in colder weather.
The market also will sell items prepared in the processing area. The hub will not have the certification to process meat or dairy items, but it will sell a limited variety from other sources.
Prices will be competitive, organizers say.
The Food Hub, built at a cost of $1.2 million, brings investment and some vitality to the struggling area. Neighborhood resident Frederick Hayes, 56, need only look across the street from his home to see the hub. He lives on Douglas Street, off Cedar Street.
“I’m glad there’s something coming to this neighborhood,” Hayes said. “All they’ve been doing is tearing [abandoned houses and other properties] down around here.”
The hub “will be handy for the neighborhood. A lot of people don’t have cars. They have to catch the bus” to get groceries, said James Turner, 58, who also lives across Douglas from the hub. “I will be checking the vegetables out.”
That’s what the Food Hub organizers want to hear. They note the area is a food desert on the United States Department of Agriculture’s map, signifying an area where residents are low-income and where a significant portion of residents are more than a mile from a supermarket.
While the hub will open for sales in early May, a grand opening is being planned for June 23, when more produce will be available.
Farmers markets will be held outside the hub on a monthly basis, probably beginning in July or August. The markets will be set up at one of two big freshly painted recycled shipping containers visible from Cedar. The other shipping container has been turned into an area for bicycles.
Inside, the hub includes the store area, a kitchen for food processing, an area where food is packaged, a space for washing produce. The building also has meeting rooms to be used for community cooking classes and worker training sessions.
Participants in the work-training program already are packaging food for two small area food companies, one that makes granola and another that makes fruit leather.
“I’m the type of person who likes to help other people,” said trainee Breanna Cleavenger, 23, explaining that she’s happy the granola that she packs will be made available at the store.
Zac Rheinberger, Hattie Larlham food operations director, envisions the trainees helping to make items such as pasta sauces and jams, using vegetables and fruit grown at Hattie’s Gardens. These products also would be sold as the store.
The winged-roof? It’s a “living roof,” explained Dotty Grexa, a vice president at Hattie Larlham. The roof will be planted with a cover crop, and rain water will run down the deep V of the roof and travel to a retention pond behind the hub. The hope is to attain Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification for the building, considered a high achievement in green construction. The building was designed by Jeff Foster of Payto Architects of Cleveland.
The building is named for Ernest S. and Virginia D. Ferry, whose daughter Patricia Ferry was a large donor to the project.
The project also was paid for with a $250,000 state grant, as well as other contributions. Another significant donation came from Bud and Katie Koch.
Katie Byard can be reached at 330-996-3781 or kbyard@thebeaconjournal.com.